I Just Set Up My SCSIWYG MCP Integration

Apr 20, 2026 · dev log · 5 min read

What You See Is What You Get — now with ancient hardware, a lot of Googling, and Claude holding my hand the entire way. Extremely normal weekend.

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// origin story //

I should be upfront: I am not a systems programmer. I don't have a deep background in storage protocols. What I do have is a pile of old hardware in my closet, a vague memory of the word "SCSI" from a 2003 computer magazine, and access to Claude.

The idea was simple enough to state: I wanted to connect Claude to my NAS using MCP — the Model Context Protocol that lets AI tools plug into real systems. I'd heard about people doing cool MCP integrations and wanted to try one that felt a bit more unusual than "Claude reads my todo list." SCSI, the ancient storage bus technology, seemed like exactly the kind of unhinged direction I was looking for.

I called it SCSIWYG. You know, like WYSIWYG. What You See Is What You Get. Except with SCSI. Look, naming things is hard.

How Much Did I Actually Do

Honestly? I had the idea, I described the idea to Claude, and then Claude and I figured it out together over about three hours. I copy-pasted more than I'd like to admit. There was one moment where I confidently typed a config value completely wrong and spent 40 minutes convinced the whole approach was broken before Claude spotted my typo.

This is just what building things looks like now, I think. The idea was mine. The curiosity was mine. The debugging despair was very much mine. The part where actual working code appeared — that had a lot of Claude in it.

What It Actually Does

At a high level: Claude can now talk to my NAS. It can ask "what's on this drive," read files, and — with my confirmation — write things back. The SCSI part is mostly just the nerdy plumbing underneath. From my perspective I just chat with Claude and it does stuff with my storage. Which is either very cool or slightly terrifying depending on your disposition.

⚠ hard-won advice: Set up a confirmation step before Claude can write anything. I did not do this initially. I have since done this. We don't need to discuss what happened in between.

Does It Work

Yes! This is the part that still surprises me. I can ask Claude to find a file, it pokes around the connected storage, and comes back with actual real information. It feels like giving Claude hands — slightly dangerous, occasionally mysterious hands that reach into a box of old hard drives.

The most fun part is that Claude sort of explores before answering. It figures out what's there first, then goes and gets what you asked for. Watching it reason through a storage device like a curious technician is unexpectedly delightful.

What's Next

I want to push it further — more device types, maybe a virtual tape drive just for the absurdity of it. I'll probably ask Claude to help me figure out how. The README is already mostly a transcript of me explaining the project to Claude and Claude explaining it back to me. We're a good team.

Code is on GitHub. It is rough. It works on my machine. That's all I've got.

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#mcp #scsi #homelab #claude #devlog #vibes-based-engineering